Free-For-All Friday

[geraineon]

Time for free for all Friday, a day for random chit-chat!

Do you want to talk about the other novels you are reading or find a read-along partner? Practice your Chinese? Request for fics? Ask for beta readers? Just talk about your day?

Go right ahead!

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

Earlier this week I read Wendy Chen's recent translation of Li Qingzhao's poems (The Magpie at Night: The Complete Poems of Li Qingzhao (1084 - 1151) )! I enjoyed them, but I wish there were footnotes included with the poems (there are notes, but they're at the end of the collection, after all the poems). I get the argument w/r/t wanting them viewed primarily as works of art (rather than potentially autobiographical), but I prefer having the context nearer the actual poems they apply to.

I also kinda wish the untranslated poems had been included along with the translations, so I could see what they look like (even though I wouldn't be able to read them) - for all the technical issues I had with The Lantern and the Night Moths ebook, I particularly liked that it included those.

I was excited to realize the print versions of volumes 5 and 6 of QJJ now have listings at various bookstores! I'm kinda curious when the cover art for volume 4 is going to be revealed (especially since it's out in a little over 2 months).

[larryhammer]

I should look this up. I've been meaning to translate some of her poems for a while, and it'd be nice to have a good one so I don't have to do it myself. (My translation TBD list, it is too long as it is.)

[llonkrebboj]

Li Qingzhao <3! I went !!!!! before reading the rest of your comment and clicked into your goodreads link xD Someone kindly left excerpts of poems they enjoyed, and I recognized one instantly ^^

https://fwoopersongs.tumblr.com/post/657252002141700096

- with pictures to help with the imagery and too much rambling on choices.

A pity there aren't originals included on the opposing pages. That always makes translated poetry a little more frustrating for me to read xD

The Lantern and the Night Moths with the originals before the translations, and the essays immediately after was so good for that! Having had both a PDF (arc) and hardcopy book, the latter provided a better reading experience xD

[aurumcalendula]

Ooh neat! Thank you! (and now I really wish Wendy Chen had included notes on her translation, since it looks like she broke up lines/phrases in that poem and I'm very curious why)

[douqi]

I love Li Qingzhao and it's very cool that there's a published translated collection of her poems! We did read them as part of poetry club on dankodes a couple of years ago, and we were using this translation from De Gruyter's Library of Chinese Humanities.

[larryhammer]

Ugh.

Sparked by aurumcalendula's thread, I looked at my actual translations TBD list. Mistake. As if I wasn't already stressed enough. On my plate ongoing:

• Finish the last 76 poems of 300 Tang Poems
• Finish the other two thirds of Dao De Jing
• Finish the second half of "Visiting Princess Changning's Drifting-Winecup Pool" by Shangguan Wan'er
• Finish Cai Yan's two poems of grief and resentment
• Get the manuscript of the Tang ghost poems ready for submission
• Get the manuscript of Wangchuan Collection by Wang Wei and Pei Di ready for submission

Plus on deck after these are "18 Songs for a Nomad Flute" by "Cai Yan" and by Liu Shang, poems various Tang women poets: Li Ye, Xue Tao, Yu Xuanji, the palace songs collection attributed to Lady Huarui, and a selection of a few dozen by courtesans. Plus Lu You’s cat poems. Because, like, dude -- cat poems.

Wimper. Why do I do this to myself? Whyyyyyyy?

[aurumcalendula]

Those sound cool! (especially "Visiting Princess Changning's Drifting-Winecup Pool" by Shangguan Wan'er)

[larryhammer]

It is cool, but ugh so hard — it’s flowery courtier poetry, but it’s also part of the shift in style that resulted in what we think of as typical Tang. Which is really High Tang — compare poetry written in the first century of the Tang Dynasty with anyone Meng Haoran and after. As anthology editor and exam judge, not to mention prolific poet to the court of Wu Zetian, Shangguan Wan’er was a big influence on the new style.

But sifting through courtly compliments and recondite allusions is a pain.